At one week from surgery, unless you have had some areas of incomplete healing or ischemia causing partial skin loss, your incisions are sealed and need no antibiotic protection. In fact, Neosporin (and Mycitracin) are triple antibiotic ointments containing bacitracin, polymyxin, and neomycin.Neomycin has a fairly significant (as high as 10%) risk of stimulating a hypersensitivity or allergic reaction with repeated application. Of course, when the incisional area where it has been applied starts to turn red and get tiny blisters, most patients (and a surprising number of doctors) do not think allergic or hypersensitivity reaction, they think "OMG, infection!" And then what do you think happens? Yup, MORE Neosporin ointment. I have even seen this get so bad the patient goes to her family doctor, who says "Heavens, that looks infected!" and then starts the patient on potent oral antibiotics (all the while continuing the ointment that is actually the CAUSE of the problem).If you want your scars to be the best possible, use Vitamin E oil to gently massage the scars (start no sooner than 3 weeks post-op to allow the scars to become durable and to avoid stretch or breakdown from too-early or too-vigorous massage). Silicone scar sheeting or scar pads will also help flatten, soften, and fade scars, reducing scar hypertrophy. These are the ONLY things that have been shown to reliably improve scar appearance. Mederma, ScarGuard, etc. are not harmful, but have not been shown to have an actual statistically-significant benefit over gentle massage and scar pads.if you must use ointment on a few tiny areas of delayed healing or pinhole opening, use Bacitracin (single antibiotic ointment) as it has much less likelihood for stimulating an allergic or hypersensitivity response.Best wishes! Dr. Tholen
Not sure why you would want to put neosporin on your scars...typically, people want to use scar creams but I would recommend that you wait until your incisions are fully healed (meaning no scabs) before applying any type of lotion or cream. Every plastic surgeon has their own post op protocol so please follow their post op regimen. Best wishes for a speedy recovery!!
